From Student to Scholar

For Dr. Sarah Stewart-Kroeker, PhD '14, returning to Princeton Theological Seminary as a faculty member feels like a homecoming. Some ten years ago, when she was a PhD student at Princeton Theological Seminary, Stewart-Kroeker greatly valued the expertise of her faculty mentors. In fact, she says it’s what drew her to Princeton Seminary in the first place. “Initially, my doctoral project was focused on Augustine and Barth, and there was really no place that had the expertise on both those figures as strongly as PTS did,” she recalls. When her focus eventually shifted to centering on Augustine, the Seminary’s extensive faculty resources and strong sense of community eased the transition. “I felt incredibly fortunate to be able to work with the professors I did and make great friends with the student cohort I was a part of,” she says. “The community of PTS was a place where I really thrived.” So perhaps it’s no surprise that Stewart-Kroeker returned to campus this fall as Associate Professor of Early Christian Theology.

Stewart-Kroeker holds an undergraduate degree from McMaster University and a Master of Arts in religion specializing in theology from Yale Divinity School. After earning her doctoral degree from Princeton Seminary, she embarked on a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia. Two years later, she accepted a position in the theology faculty at the University of Geneva, where she taught for the last seven years. “All of my teaching experience has been in Europe in a French-speaking context in Switzerland,” she says. “I’m looking forward to getting to know students on this side of the ocean, understanding what’s on their minds, and discerning how early Christian theology can respond to those issues.”

PTS is one of the best places in the world for theological education, because there is a clear and intentional commitment to think innovatively about theological education in a changing context and climate.

In addition to teaching a new cohort of students, Stewart-Kroeker is excited to continue her research on Augustine, specifically, two discourses in Augustinian scholarship that don’t often converge: his political theology outlined in City of God, and his sermons, homilies, and commentaries on the Psalms. By examining these elements together, Stewart-Kroeker hopes to reveal the role of emotions in moral and political life. “In City of God, Augustine says that at the heart of the life of Christian members of the city of God is the direction of our loves and emotions but, especially in relation to the emotions, he doesn’t flesh out what that looks like,” she says. “Where you get that detail is in his commentaries on the Psalms, which he considered the key to orienting emotions rightly.”

Stewart-Kroeker’s research interests also include theological aesthetics, broader questions about moral formation in feminist theology and gender studies, and environmental ethics and theology.

“PTS is one of the best places in the world for theological education, because there is a clear and intentional commitment to think innovatively about theological education in a changing context and climate,” she says. “I look forward to participating in the new curriculum, getting to know my colleagues, and having a whole new set of dialogue partners with whom to develop these new and necessary conversations.”